Time is Weird

For some reason, I've been struggling lately with the concept of time.

Maybe it's because I hit that 20+ year mark in my career, maybe it's because I'll turn 44 this year, or maybe it's because I feel like the clock is running at 2x speed at all times.

I have this weird concept of the last seven or eight years where I think about my career before the pandemic began, then there is this weird window where I was working from home, then the move to Dubai, and then back again.

In that window of time I worked for three different companies and my career sort of went on some twists and turns both amazing and some unique.

I remember graduating from college and seeing job descriptions that required 8-10 years plus worth of experience and thinking that felt like such a long ways away. Today I sit here with 20+ years and while I am grateful for all of the experience and the learnings, it sort of has a way to freak me out too.

Time is weird because while you're living through it, everything feels slower than it actually is. A difficult quarter feels like it will never end. A bad boss feels permanent. A job search that lasts six months feels like six years. Then suddenly you look backward and realize an entire decade disappeared while you were busy worrying about an upcoming Tuesday.

That is probably the part that has been hitting me lately. We spend so much of our careers waiting for something. Waiting for the promotion. Waiting for the company to recognize us. Waiting for the right opportunity. Waiting until we feel ready. Waiting until the kids are older. Waiting until the market gets better. Waiting until life becomes a little less complicated. Meanwhile, the clock keeps moving whether we are ready or not and whether we are enjoying the moments or not.

It doesn't mean you should panic and start making reckless decisions because you're suddenly aware that time is finite. It means you should probably become more intentional about what deserves your time in the first place. Twenty years into a career, I have a much lower tolerance for spending years somewhere hoping a situation magically becomes something it has repeatedly shown me it isn't going to become.

Every year you spend in the wrong environment is a year you aren't spending somewhere else.

There is an opportunity cost attached to almost everything we do. Every year you spend in the wrong environment is a year you aren't spending somewhere else. Every month you avoid the conversation you know you need to have is another month living with the consequences of not having it. Every time you say "maybe next year," you are making a decision about this year whether you realize it or not.

At the same time, I don't want this awareness of time to turn into some depressing countdown clock either. When I look backward, I don't just see years disappearing. I see experiences I was lucky enough to have. I see people I never would have met, countries I never expected to visit, teams I got to build, mistakes that taught me something, wins I still smile about, and chapters that were messy as hell while I was living through them but make a lot more sense now.

Maybe that is the balance.

Understand that time moves faster than you think, but don't become so obsessed with maximizing every second that you forget to appreciate the fact that you are actually getting to live through it. Take the job. Leave the job. Build something. Go somewhere. Spend time with people you love. Be ambitious as hell, but occasionally look around and recognize that some of the moments you are currently rushing through will someday be the moments you wish you could experience one more time.

I can't slow the clock down, and neither can you. But I can be smarter about where I spend the time I have left, more grateful for the time I've already been given, and a little less willing to waste either one. Twenty years went by a hell of a lot faster than I thought they would. I have a feeling the next twenty will go even faster.